Good morning. With the safe return of the hostages crucial to any deal for a ceasefire, a senior Hamas official has said that “no one has an idea” how many of the 120 remaining hostages in Gaza are alive. Reiterating Hamas’s position on the US-supported ceasefire proposal, now backed by a UN security council resolution, spokesperson and political bureau member Osama Hamdan told CNN the group “needed a clear position from Israel to accept the ceasefire, a complete withdrawal from Gaza, and let the Palestinians to determine their future by themselves.
” What is happening in Gaza? Israeli tanks advanced into the western part of Rafah on Thursday as the city came under intense helicopter, drone and artillery fire in what residents described as one of the worst bombardments of the area so far. Are displaced Palestinians receiving aid? The UN’s relief agency for Palestinians, the largest aid organisation operating in Gaza, has accused Israeli authorities of frequently preventing it from delivering aid. Trump makes first visit to the Capitol since January 6 attack View image in fullscreen Donald Trump is applauded by Senate Republicans before talking to the media at the National Republican Senatorial Committee building in Washington, DC on Thursday.
Photograph: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images Donald Trump was met with applause and a serenade of “Happy Birthday” from Republicans in his first visit to the US Capitol following the January 6 attack in which his supporters de.